Finally! The European servers are now down for maintenance and we are getting F2P!

My Warden has now hit 59 which means that he can actually be of some use in the Moria instances. And yesterday I did my first “real” tanking with my Warden. We did a GS HM run and i got to tank Igash (while our guardian took care of the Devoted and his archers). I must say that i enjoyed it quite a bit!

I’ve studied tanking with a Warden a lot by reading on the web, mostly other blogs. Because of this I knew pretty much what to expect. I expected some trouble getting initial aggro, but that holding aggro once i got it would be no problem. Both these things were true.

Being used to playing a Hunter in the six man instances and raids, it was quite the opposite being a tank. Normally, with the Hunter, I do anything i can to not get aggro, which can get quite boring when all you want is to see really large yellow numbers. It was definitely more satisfying being a tank, where you don’t have to hold back, you just have to go nuts! Thankfully, I also had a lvl 65 Healer keeping me alive, making it a bit easier than it really should be.

The silence from Codemasters is deafening right now. There is a thread now 193 pages long in the EU forums, mostly containing very upset players. The most upsetting thing is not the delay in itself, but the lack of communication from Codemasters, which has lead to a number of different theories on why there is a delay in the first place. Since I am a subscriber, and will let my account just roll into VIP when (if?) F2P comes, i don’t really care that much about the delay. Sure, it would be nice to see the new area, but it’ll come eventually anyway. We did get the welcome back week, at least until recently, and that gave me the perfect opportunity to power-level my Warden.

The Warden class is really cool to play, for several reasons. First of all, there’s a lot of gambits, and even if they can be hard to remember at times, it’s a fun way to test out different ways to play. All the self-healing and morale-leeching gambits really help when taking on high-morale bosses, and the DPS on the spear-gambits actually isn’t that bad. Sure, a Warden can’t keep up with the traditional DPS-classes when it comes to DPS, but for a tank, it’s outstanding. I have now hit 44 on my Warden, and I’m planning on moving into Eregion very soon, first of all to collect the last pages for my book-deeds, but also to get ready for Moria.

Since most players in my kin (including myself) is casual players it can be quite hard to get a good group for the 6 and 12-man instances in LOTRO, but yesterday we did get a nice group to do Sammath Gûl. It was my first time and I really liked it.

It also meant i could now get my final rad-piece and I’m now ready for the greater challenges ahead. I also got the Bregloch earring, which sadly enough is really nice compared to my other crappy jewelery, I really have to do something about that.

Besides SG there has been a lot of deed-grinding going on for me lately. Trying to get those virtues up a notch, and fixing my legendary traits. My Hunter is now actually starting to look like a pretty solid build and all I really need is some new jewelery. A second or first age bow would also be nice of course, but my third age will be fine for now.

I did a post a while ago about doing Sword Halls with three Hunters. I am really looking forward to trying this when LOTRO goes F2P with the new and improved Hunter skills. Now we will have both interupt and corruption removal.

You might wonder why this blog is called “Tales From The Great Barrow”.

First of all, it’s obviously stolen from Tales from the Crypt, and the Great Barrows is kind of a crypt. But more importantly the Great Barrows was where i fully realized what LOTRO is all about. GB is the first time in the game where you really need a fellowship, before that I did everything solo, trying to level up as fast as possible. But playing in a fellowship for the first time made me realize that is what makes this game so awesome. It was a PUG, but it didn’t really matter, it really changed everything. I had been in fellowships before GB, but that was just to help someone, or get some help myself. This was the first time in a fellowship where you needed real teamwork.

I still do most my playing solo. But it’s the times when you’re in a fellowship or raid that you’ll remember. You don’t remember killing hundreds of animals to get a deed, or running around the map like crazy for a exploration deed. I can’t even remember most of the epic quest line. What i do remember is things like GB, Grand Stairs, Sword Halls and taking down that enormous, ugly turtle!

There is one other thing that has stuck in my memory too. I had just come to the North Downs for the first time, being level 20-something I had probably done the first quests you get at Trestlebridge but had now gone up to Colbert the Mad and his little camp overlooking the Fields of Fornost (Probably the quest The search for Idalene that brought me there). As I stood there looking out over the dead forest ahead of me, with my back turned to the green fields, a hobbit standing there picks up his lute and starts playing Concerning Hobbits from the movie soundtrack. Epic moment!

Ok, so I’m back again. I’ve had a long break from LOTRO now, but started playing again a couple of days ago. It’s funny with LOTRO, as soon as you enter middle-earth you remember what made you start playing it. It’s simply amazing.

I’m probably gonna put a lot of time into my warden, it’s a fun class to play, but not an easy class. I also started a new char, another Hunter. With my Man/Hunter at 65 I felt the need to start all over with a new one. This time I know from the start what i need, and what I can be without. It’s an Elf/Hunter this time, and I will do everything I can to max that DPS out.

Ok, so I’ve tried every class in LOTRO except burg, and with my Hunter now at 65, I had to choose wich alt to level up.

Not an easy decision, but one that had to be made. I finally picked my Captain (at level 28 at the time). The Captain is an awesome class to play. Solo play is great fun, and quite easy as long as you don’t start hitting the red mobs. In a fellowship you are extremely adaptable, being able to both tank and heal, or just DPS.

I have now hit 38, and I’m taking a break from levelling to complete som low-level-area deeds. I’ve already finished up everything i Bree-land, almost everything in the Shire, and am now working on the deeds in Ered Luin. After that, I’ll go through the lone Lands and North Downs finishing deeds before I resume the hunt for 65.

I intend to make this a solid build, with a wide variety of level 10 virtues to choose from. All the race and class traits unlocked for use and ofcourse all the legendary traits too. It will take many hours to get the perfect build, but as I already have the Hunter at 65, I’m under no pressure, I can still do endgame content with my kin.

Ok, so I haven’t written anything here in quite some time. That’s because I’ve been playing. And almost nonstop I’ve been playing the one thing I had doubts about in MW; Skirmishes!

And i absolutely LOVE them. So far I have nothing bad at all to say about them, they are great. I’ve levelled to 62 just on skirmishes, but that also leads to another problem. I’m only on Chapter 2 in book 9, wich means some skirmishes are still locked for me. Oh well, I’ll get there when I get there.

My favourite so far, is probably Ford of Bruinen, with Prancing Pony not far behind. Last night, the kin did a 12 man raid in Thievery and Mischief, wich was really fun, but we completely failed at the bosses in the end. Four bosses with 150k+ morale and healing buffs was just too hard. And before we could discover any good strategy people had to leave and go to bed (me among them). But we’ll have to give it a try some other day.

At first, I choose an Archer as my soldier, and being a Hunter myself, we sure did massive DPS. But my morale was always in danger, and I never had any power, so eventually I abondoned the Archer for a Herbalist, and it’s worked great so far. Sure, it takes a lot more time to kill all enemys, and you have to be careful not to let the Herbalist get to much aggro, but in the end, it does more good then bad, because I still got some morale and power left after a fight.

I would love to test a protector too, but i fear that they would (as Guardins do) have problems holding aggro while I’m in strength stance, and doing solo-skirmishes in endurance? Don’t think so.

Lastly, I just have to mention the Barrow-downs skirmish. It’s completely insane! In a good way. Can’t wait to try that one out in a raid. We did it with a six man FS and it’s, well, impossible to stay alive for longer than perhaps ten minutes. One lieutenant had an AOE attack giving everyone in the FS 3k damage… Insane.. And I’m loving it!

I started playing Lotro when the level cap was already at 60. I never got to do Uru and CD at level 50, wich I realise now, was too bad.

Me and some kinnies took a few hours yesterday night to play them both, and I must say that it’s a shame i didn’t get to do theese when they were top level stuff, because it must have been a real challenge. We were six level 60’s (perhaps not the ideal composition of classes though) and it sure wasn’t a walk in the park.

Ooh, almost forgot! Two days ago, I ordered a new graphics card. 4850HD 512mb. Hope it arrives today.